MelonHead

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<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

I wouldn't say you need a horse. In fact, a Samurai largely being a horse archer, has less business being on foot with only a sword than a knight (who historically dismounted for sieges anyway.) yet they pull it off pretty well. (perhaps unreasonably well from a historic stand point, they don't even get the option of a shield after all for some absurd reason)

@GreivousKhan

Yeah, I've recently been on a semi-crusade to discover why the Japanese never bothered with shields, I've still not heard any fully convincing arguments. (other than the fact that almost all their mainstream weaponry was traditionally used two handed.)

I think the difference is the 'primary' weapon of the Knight was the lance (as far as I'm aware, anyway) which is pretty much completely unusuable on foot. The Yari, Naginata, Konabo, Katana, No Daichi etc etc were all of significant use on foot, most were actually designed for it. The Samurai only had to be on a horse for mobility, no other reason really.

To be fair, I doubt Knights besieged castles all that frequently historically, that was the job of the peasants. Except during the Crusades I suppose, though one Crusade did end with the *Holy Roman Emperor, Fred falling in a river and drowning because of his armour, which is really irrelevant but a favourite fact of a friend of mine.

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<Snipped quote by Takashi>

You have insulted my family, you must die.

Hmm, I should really make a knight character. A proepr knight character at some point.

@GreivousKhan

You'd need a horse, which is the main turn off for me.

Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi - Orcish Mercenaries

<Snipped quote by Peik>

In that cause they'd need a good reason to want to rule, aside from power of course. I was thinking of something tragic for the claimant, such as witnessing their father being murdered/assassinated and mother raped. Thus paving a way for your basic heroes journey...

Of course there is the risk said person would end up being more interesting than our characters. :P

@GreivousKhan

In a weird way I think that is what would make our characters interesting. We've all heard the stories of the legendary hero's rise to power and justice, but who's heard the story told from the point of view of the grunts?

I think that's what drew me to this.

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With all the Japanophiles wandering around people tend to forget that there was an incredibly strong code of honour known as Chivalry in West Europe that was pretty much as strong as Bushido, with slightly less emphasis on suicide for minor misdemeanours. (Recently found out that the 47 Ronin story, which I was aware was loosely true, started because their lord was tricked into drawing his sword in a castle in Edo, and had to commit suicide for it.)

Allaria Ch. 4: Rescue and Escape

Btw, do you want me to list all the spells my character knows?

@All, so anyone interested in pre-established affiliations between out characters?

@GreivousKhan

I'd be fine with a working history, anyone could have been on a task with my character in the past, though it's unlikely they'd know him well on social terms.

Could definitely do with getting these characters sorted, only got three of them posted in so far.

Nar Mat Kordh-Ishi - Orcish Mercenaries

Have you decided on the backstory for why we're sieging the stronghold? Being framed in some form of larger plot would definitely suit a band of unloved Orc mercenaries and help drive the story, we could even find that we'd done the bad guys dirty work for them after sieging the castle and discovering we'd been manipulated twice over.

Just some throw away ideas.

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I remember reading about a siege in the 100 years war that proves "civil war" is not an oxymoron. An English general was besieging a French castle. He managed to dig some kind of trench around the castle that was about to cause it to collapse or something, so rather than utterly crushing his enemies he properly warned the French general what he was doing. The French general didn't believe him, so the English bloke invited him outside to show him. The French dude was like, "Hmm... looks like you're right. OK, we surrender." Then the two armies had a pleasant banquet together.

@Takashi

That might be the most English thing I've ever heard.

He also probably wanted the castle intact though.

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Yeah, I was indeed distinguishing between battles on the open field and sieges, which I know were far more common and often less bloody, as everyone stood outside and waited for the people in the castle to starve and surrender.

In fact, I think I mentioned the very same fact in the Arena chat thread a few weeks back when someone mentioned medieval battles.

I suppose the reason why battles were uncommon was that it was incredibly rare for two sides to want to fight and destroy each other, because it would rely on a situation where for some reason both sides were confident of victory, which just didn't happen. The smaller side would just run away (manoeuvring) until more favourable conditions were met. Where-as guys in a castle didn't really have the option of running away from larger forces, so the people ensured of victory could set things in motion and engage combat.

I didn't know that about Anglo Saxon England, though as is common I'm only really aware in any detail of the battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings, which were both foreign invasions, so I doubt rules of etiquette would apply.

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<Snipped quote by MelonHead>

Common misconception.

If battle turned into shoving matches, the people in the first and second row would suffocate to death and cause all kinds of cohesive failure for the unit as a whole. Imagine 12 or more people pushing you from the back while being waged up against a dozen bodies in front of you. Total chaos.

Melees are actually something generals absolutely try to avoid. You'd have an insane amount of casualties and little tactical gain.

@GreivousKhan

Which is why medieval battles were incredibly rare and avoided at all costs, but they still happened. Sucks to be the guy at the front I guess. Clifford Rogers believed a great deal of the French who died at Agincourt were actually pushed over by their own men and drowned in the mud, or even suffocated in their own armour (which is known to have happened in other battles, apparently.)

Poor French bastards.

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It's your character, so fair enough, from what I know of First Nation People's they tended to favour guerilla tactics where being physically robust in a pushing and shoving sort of way (which most medieval battles tended to come down to on the front line) was not a major concern, nor something they trained for. Though there's always anomalies in every population, I'm sure some favoured physical strength over speed and agility in combat, though the tomahawk at least to me feels like an agile weapon that wouldn't necessarily be of more use in the hands of someone stronger. That's the only reason I made the assumption of him having a sort of wiry strength (That and you mentioned he didn't seem overly muscular.)

Then again, though I can't remember if it was explicitly stated looking at your character's weapons he seems to be from a modern setting, so I suppose what was historically true is irrelevant.

A good baseline for strength and speed is to decide what trait you'd like your character to favour and find what the world record in terms of Olympic sport is, then scale down somewhat for realism. That's how I personally set my character stats anywho. Stronger characters -tend- to be less agile, though that doesn't have to translate to being slower in a straight sprint. Height and build have similar advantages and disadvantages.

At the very least, a strong character will be able to lift their own body weight. Obviously in combat factors like height and reach can be just as important to the strength of someone's muscles, but at some point the direct statistical strength of your character may come into question, as contests of strength are somewhat common. Speed is similarly important, if you want to outrun someone or something.